Action Plan to Promote Healthy Fathering

Imagine a place where people in every part of the community, all types of agencies, organizations, businesses, institutions of learning, neighborhood and faith groups work in concert to improve the lives of children. What if they do it by promoting, encouraging, and rewarding healthy fathering? Clark County is on the path to becoming such a place.

Background

The original Clark County Action Plan to Promote Responsible Fatherhood was the result of four months of preparation in 2011. The plan was revised in 2015 and is a five-year Community Action Plan to Promote Healthy Fathering (The Plan). The Plan aims to assist fathers of minor children in Clark County to become committed, skilled, and financially stable as they seek to improve as parents, partners, and providers. The Plan considers the specified deliverables and outcomes of the CCDJFS Fatherhood Coordination Contract with me, and endeavors to extend the community’s mobilization to include more father-specific direct service providers. The Plan draws upon the heralded success our community has achieved in engaging leadership in Clark County.

The preparation process for The Plan was informed by research over the past several months that includes statistics from Father’s Needs Survey (Intake Data - Urban Light Ministries Fatherhood Program 2014-15), Survey of Father-Specific Direct Service Programs Targeting Clark County Fathers (CCDJFS 2015), Families in Poverty – Children Under 18 (American Fact-Finder, US Census 2013), Clark County Father Absence Rate (Community Survey - US Census), and Non-marital Births (Ohio Department of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics, 2014). Input was provided by members of Fatherhood Commission of Clark County (advisory council to Urban Light Ministries, Inc. - lead agency for Fatherhood Clark County which is the community’s official mobilization initiative, and is the Miami Valley of Ohio’s leading father-specific direct services provider).